Monday, July 23, 2018

Michael Corleone? Fugheddaboutit!
A Manhattan federal judge quoted from “The Godfather: Part III” in
court Thursday while balking at a reputed Genovese crime-family capo’s
assertion that he only returned to “the life’’ because he couldn’t make
ends meet on Social Security.
“This does not suggest, like Al Pacino in ‘The Godfather,’ ‘Just when
I thought I was out … they pull me back in,’ ” Judge Richard Sullivan
said, quoting one of the flick’s famous lines uttered by Pacino as mob
boss Corleone.
The lawyer for convicted loanshark Eugene “Rooster’’ O’Nofrio had
been arguing that his client, 76, was financially struggling when he was
offered an opportunity to make some illicit dough by government
cooperator John “Junior” Rubeo.
“He only got back in because Rubeo offered him a last chance,” O’Nofrio’s lawyer, Thomas Nooter, told the judge.
But Sullivan wasn’t buying it, citing evidence presented by the feds
that O’Nofrio was widely considered an “acting” capo of the mob family
who ran crews from Manhattan’s Mulberry Street and Springfield, Mass.
“You know … Springfield was given to me,” O’Nofrio said in one taped call.
In another call, O’Nofrio discussed how to intimidate a guy who owed him money on a $30,000 loan.
“What do I got to do with him?” O’Nofrio said. “Do you have to take his eyes out?”
Nooter insisted to the judge, “My client was playing a role. It was
like he was living in the glory days when there was an active Geneovese
crime family.”
But after quoting from “The Godfather,’’ Sullivan said, “This suggests Mr. O’Nofrio was in.”
Sullivan sentenced O’Nofrio to two years and six months in prison for loansharking and selling contraband cigarettes.
“I’m truly sorry, and you won’t see me again,” O’Nofrio told the judge before he was sentenced.